U.S. resolution’s principles still valid after 200 years

Press, 15 July 1976, Page 8

U.S. resolution’s principles still valid after 200 years

Washington (By MARK FRANKLAND of ’ the "Observer”) The great 200th birthday parts- is over. Before it happened many Americans said they were already bored by the whole thing. Others feared that the celebrations would collapse in riot and disorder. Mr Frank Rizzo, the Mayor of Philadelphia, a former policeman who , once swore he would “make Genghis Khan look like a fairy,” professed to be so worried about the dangers to his city that he asked to be protected by the Army. In fact the celebration turned out to be both exciting and safe. Mayor Rizzo, who did no-t get his trooos, had no problems in Phila--1 delphia. A million people watched Washington’s fireworks with scarcely a fist fight. The radical counterparades were little attended and as peaceful as the official ones. A few thousand young people in Washington chanted “Mobil, Exxon, LT.T. —- down with corporate tyranny!” But most Americans, young as well as old, seemed to want to watch the old-fashioned stuff: marching bands, the sailing ships in New York harbour, and all the old fourth of July razzle-dazzle.

The impression has been of a vast nation that is still proud of itself, optimistic, and of largely tranquil state of mind. The scars of Watergate and Vietnam were nowhere to be seen. Can they have healed so quickly or

were they simply carefully covered for the holiday?

It is difficult to say, but the celebrations did suggest one reason why this country has such mighty powers of recuperation. The rhetoric of the last few days has been tolerable and even often instructive because it has referred again and again to revolutionary principles which are no less valid for modern America than for the America of 200 years ago.

And these revolutionaryprinciples of liberty and equality clearly remain more attainable (though by no means completely attained yet) in this country than anywhere else in the world. It is this combination of principle and possibility which is America’s special quality and which helps redeem it after its black periods. Take one example. Many people would say that America’s worst problem now is the poverty of 24m Americans. These are the Americans who live below the official poverty line and their number has scarcely diminished since 1969. when Richard Nixon took office. To look at it in another way, the poorest fifth of the population earns only 5J per cent of America’s income while the richest fifth receive a full 41 per cent. It is true that this tremendous gap between the richest add the poorest Americans (it is even bigger if you look at it in terms of total property rather than income) has not destroyed America’s belief in social equality. Nor has it led to the creation of

a class system of the British sort.

You can be very rich and, socially, very grand in this country and be treated with greatest respect by others like you and by gossip columnists but you will meet with no more respect out on the street than anyone else. The social elite, knowing this, tends to keep to itself.

But the fact that a tenth of all Americans are, by this country's reckoning, really poor, cannot be lived with for long. The next Administration may well make or mar its name by how it deals with this problem because there is little doubt that America has the resources and ingenuity to cope with it. Which brings us back to America as a country of possibility as well as principles. Quite a lot has been said over the last few days about America and its revolution as an example to the rest of the world. The greatest of the American revolutionaries certainly believed that what they were doing had significance for the whole .world. They believed that they were acting according to principles that held good for all mankind.

Were they living today they might be more cautious for they would know more about the rest of the world. They would see that there are countries in Europe with roots going back to the Judaeo-Christian and the Greco-Roman and for which therefore the principles ol the American revolution are familiar.

But they would not find this to be the case in most countries of the world, not even in countries so highlydeveloped as Japan (which Americans these days treat as though it were “Western”).

But few if any of the countries that share or even understand American principles _ also enjoy American possibilities. They are often geographically and socially cramped beyond the American understanding. Europe has too much history and too little space. It cannot give its citizens the mobility, both physical and social, that is such an important part of American individual freedom. So a European who has watched the great 200th birthday party (200 years is

.of course not much for a European to be excited about) may be content that this country seems more at peace with itself than seemed possible only a year ago. But he also notes that it is an America which others can share in only if they come here.—O.F.N.S. copyright